


Of Rumors and Ruin

by hajitoru



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Animosity to Affection, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Prince Iwaizumi Hajime, Prince Oikawa Tooru, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28863135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hajitoru/pseuds/hajitoru
Summary: Yesterday Tooru thought he had two years of peace. Two years of gallivanting around the kingdom doing whatever and whomever the hell he wanted, causing a mess that’d reap scandal through the nation and possibly ruin the arrangement. He could do something horrible enough to have the opposite party pull back from the marriage proposal, but now everything's changed.Now, he only has two days to pull himself together and put on a pleasant front for guests, to ignore the slowly rising anger and urges to cause a scene that’d bring dishonor on the entire Oikawa Crown.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Of Rumors and Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> loosely inspired by YA fantasy, not in any way taken/inspired by Japanese mythology/fantasies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to my new child. it's gonna be bonkers, but a lot of fun. if you're here from all of my tik toks, HELLO!! thank you for sticking through and supporting this <3  
> i don't want to make any concrete promises on chapters because i am in my last semester of undergrad, writing 2 novels, and working on my thesis revision (alongside working lolol) BUT i will ~~~try~~~ to have chapters up bi-weekly. please stay patient!!
> 
> also a huge huge huge huge thanks to my mom kieran and my love mars for beta'ing these chapters and helping with revision.
> 
> hmu on my twitter: hajitoru

Much to Tooru’s disdain, it all begins with a preposition. No, most definitely not a _proposal_ , nor a proposition, but a clear preposition. Multiple prepositions, in fact, each of them doing their exact purpose, dictating the noun (himself) and it’s place in connection to another element in the clause. In this case, his marriage.

You will be married _to_ this person _on_ this date, _for_ this reason—Tooru despises it. He’s spent the past twenty-one years of his life being governed, connected to other pieces in a larger puzzle, jagged pieces that are flat and awkward, pressed up against his skin. He’s tired of it.

He can manage being a prince just fine. When it comes down to the debauchery and making other royals believe that his father’s crown is going to be worn upside down in a couple of years, it’s easy. When Tooru wakes up in the morning, upside down, with various types of lovers tied to his hip, it’s easy. It’s all fun and games—cat and mouse chasing that he absolutely adores—but the political pressure? The responsibility? Tooru would rather be buried alive than have to suffer through an agonizing meeting full of arguments about land and war and protection and false peace.

But then, of course, there is the proposal (because it is not solely a preposition). The letter is addressed to him, with no inclination of whom it was sent by, but Tooru thinks it was drafted by his father. With chicken scratch and clumped letters, he knows it’s at least not from a royal scribe. Even if his father did write the letter, why hadn’t he called on Tooru to talk about it in person? 

“Probably because the last time you spoke, he chewed your head off and threatened to take away the last bits of freedom you have,” he mumbles to himself.

Tooru scans over the letter for the fifth time since it had been slipped under his door. The parchment has been folded with precision, yet somehow still looks more like a note between friends than a promise of engagement.

_To Crown Prince Oikawa,_

_In building a stronger Crown, it has been made necessary for you to be engaged to a royal from a foreign land. For the next two years, you will be expected to undergo personal classes with Crown delegates, learning the proper ways to rule a nation. This preparation will assist you in your time reigning alongside another Crown, holding power over two nations rather than one. After these classes conclude, the wedding will be held._

There’s no doubt that it’s gone through the hands of other Crown delegates, those who have always decided where he goes and why he goes there, and what he does when he gets there. Tooru has never been able to make a decision for himself in his entire life. The Royal Court decides his every move, and he sits back and plays puppet.

A merging of kingdoms, power, alliance, more political words than Tooru likes to look at, let alone read and forge into his brain. He doesn’t even know the name of whomever he’s meant to marry. He doesn’t know a single thing about them, only that, in two years, they’ll be an official couple.

He wants to die. He wants to run to the balcony outside his bedroom and throw his body into the rocky river below, to feel the jagged edges penetrate his flesh and run the river red with his anger.

His head shoots over to look at his door when he hears the handle jiggle, then the latch clicks open.

“Heard the news,” Hanamaki says, poking his head into Tooru’s bedroom. “Congratulations.”

“Oh fuck off,” Tooru sighs, leaning back over the chair at his writing desk, in his usual, _I hate the world and the world despises me_ fashion. The letter is held loosely in his hands, pointing towards the floor as his forearm is slung over the maroon cushioned end. 

Hanamaki laughs and fully enters the bedroom, opting to sit on the edge of the writing desk. Neither the prince nor his royal guard care for the fact that it's hundred-year-old mahogany—if Hanamaki wants to sit there, the only person who’ll yell at him is the old nannies of the castle or Tooru’s mother, who never makes it past the dining hall on the opposite side of the estate.

“You should be thankful,” he says, reaching for the letter. Tooru lets it flutter to the floor before he can snatch it away, grinning up at his friend.

“Why?” Tooru asks, “because I’m being forced into a marriage with somebody I don’t even know? Someone whose name I’m completely unaware of, who’s from some castle hundreds of miles away, who I won’t meet for two years?”

“Because at least you’re allowed to marry.” Hanamaki pinches the tip of Tooru’s nose, and Tooru tries to ignore the twinge of sadness, of longing in his best friend’s eyes, but he can’t.

“I’m sorry that—” Tooru begins, but the words freeze on his tongue. 

Apologies aren’t his forte—and Oikawa Tooru has _many_ fortes. He doesn’t know how to make up for _this,_ though, or if the mistake can even be made up with words alone. It’s in Tooru’s typical fashion to erase his mistakes through actions, by going out of his way to do something for the people he hurts rather than give them half-hearted apologies that feel insincere on his gilded tongue. But this situation is different. This isn’t a simple fix and the guilt lingers in Tooru’s chest like a swollen spider, clinging to the tangled web of other guilts wrapped around his heart, etching out the veins there.

“I’m sorry that Issei got sent away, and I know I should’ve done more to stop it, but I… I couldn’t go against my father like that, not at that age,” he finishes, breathlessly. “I’m sorry.”

He hates thinking about the mishap and how he should’ve been able to correct it. How he should’ve been able to stand up to his father at fifteen when Hanamaki and Matsukawa were caught in the hallways, shielding each other from the sunlight and hiding in the shadows, instead of shielding Tooru from any impending danger. He hadn’t been in danger when they were caught, but the king had only cared about punishment rather than understanding the situation.

Hanamaki shrugs and pushes himself off the desk. “It’s alright. It wasn’t your fault to begin with. It was ours.”

“Neither of you did anything _wrong_ ,” Tooru says, jumping out of his seat and turning towards Hanamaki. “My father was the one in the wrong. He didn’t want to listen to either of you and it’s not as though you can talk back to the king, you know? I should’ve done something for both of you.”

“What’s happened has happened.” Hanamaki sighs. “Issei’s off guarding some prince in another kingdom and I’m here—“, he turns to look at Tooru with this playfully dreadful glint in his eyes, ”—stuck with your whiny, annoying self.”

Hanamaki is clearly trying to play everything off like these past five years haven’t been complete and utter shit because Issei’s been gone. There haven’t been any letters, probably prohibited by whoever runs the kingdom he was sent off to. Tooru’s father hadn’t provided any hints or clues about Issei’s whereabouts, and Tooru doesn’t think that he intends to give any direction.

Even though Issei was, _is_ , Tooru’s friend too, the boys had been a trio since their younger years—and it had been set in stone that Hanamaki and Issei both would be Tooru’s personal guard once they all turned sixteen. He knows that the separation has hurt Hanamaki more than it’ll ever hurt him. They were, _are_ , in love.

“I’m not annoying,” Tooru grumbles, “you’re just incapable of seeing the better side of me.”

“There’s a better side?”

Tooru rolls his eyes, leans down to pick the proposal letter up off the floor, then drops it onto his desk. He wipes his hands off on the front of his pants, as though the letter were coated in dirt and grime, as if his floor isn’t more than pristine. “Yes, Hanamaki, surprisingly enough, there is a better side to me.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” his friend says before tossing himself back onto Tooru’s vast bed, almost getting lost in the sea of silk sheets and ridiculously thick duvets.

“Anyway,” Hanamaki continues as Tooru settles himself back into his desk chair, “the proposal.”

“The proposal,” Tooru repeats.

“Only a letter?”

“Only a letter.”

“Nothing else?”

Tooru shakes his head, a little defeated.

His whole life he’s known that this day would creep up on him. Marriage. Settling down for the betterment of the nation rather than the content of his own heart. Tooru hasn’t even been in love before, has never been given a chance to. Fair, he’s had strangers in and out of his room on many accounts within the past few years, but he’s only twenty-one and has never been given a chance at love—genuine, tangible love.

A chance is all that he wants, but nobody’s ever fit to the mold of his cavernous heart. Not the girl he was a little more than infatuated with at sixteen or the knight who would sneak into his room when he was nineteen. Not even the cook-in-training who began slipping extra treats into his daily meals. He remembers the heart-shaped biscuit left on his evening tray, flowered and shy declarations of feelings.

Those people, they were all more than pleasant in their own right, but they weren’t _for_ Tooru. Something about them always ended up being a little off-kilter—the teenage girl who ended up marrying a noble within the kingdom without telling Tooru, the knight who ended up getting lanced mid-battle (that had left Tooru sobbing in isolation for a week), and the cook who simply stopped sending the biscuits and affection.

Perhaps they all got tired of Tooru before he had the chance to give them a shot.

Or perhaps Tooru never wanted to be in love with them anyway, always building up fantastical ideas of them in his head and then getting disappointed. He had become skilled in the art of separating himself from people when they didn’t match the pictures he had painted in his head. His mind produced masterpieces of impenetrable perfection, and their human counterparts only proved to be flawed and incapable of loving Tooru the way he’s always wanted—remorseless, wholeheartedly, swallowed. 

Realistically, Tooru should have given up on love by now, and this marriage proposal is most likely destiny’s way of saying—good job, Tooru, you fucked up on every chance you were given, and now you have to pay the price by not having a choice at all.

And Tooru hates it.

“They didn’t even send a ring,” he whines, looking over at Hanamaki with wide, pouty eyes. “How am I supposed to let all of my poor suitors know that they no longer stand a chance?”

Hanamaki snorts, and Tooru’s positive he hears him choke a little on his own laugh—well deserved, too, he should know better than to laugh so vivaciously about the slaughtering of Tooru’s love life.

“I’m sure the entire kingdom knows by now that their precious prince is getting married off to some stranger from across the continent,” he teases.

“And what if they don’t?” Tooru asks, expression reverting back to normal.

“Then they’ll find out when a stupid, pointlessly extravagant wedding takes over the entire kingdom. Which will be when, by the way?”

Tooru flicks open the letter with his index finger and glosses over the words with a sigh, “No definite date is set. It only says in two years' time.”

“That’s a little fairy tale if you ask me.”

“This entire situation is a little fairy tale, Hanamaki,” he grumbles. “I’m being married off to a stranger, I didn’t get a ring, and this entire ordeal feels like a curse. Next thing you know, there’ll be a fairy on my shoulder granting me wishes.”

Hanamaki cracks a grin, then says, “I wonder when you’ll meet them.”

“Me, too.”

Hanamaki runs his index finger and thumb along his chin, humming strangely, and it makes Tooru want to kick him out of his room. He despises it when Hanamaki gets that little scheming look on his face, as if he’s already working through the nearby kingdoms in his head, mentally analyzing their royalty.

“I’m sure we can find out somehow,” he says.

Tooru laughs and rolls his eyes. “ _You_ can find out. I’m going to leave it alone.”

“Leave it alone? That doesn’t sound like you.” Hanamaki pushes himself up onto his elbows, and Tooru catches the glint in his eyes, the one that questions whether or not Tooru’s being genuine.

“Am I supposed to sit around, wallowing in wait? Trying to hunt down clues that may lead to nowhere?” Tooru asks. 

He shakes his head before Hanamaki can answer. “I’m not going to get all worked up over it. For the next two years, I’m still free, I can do whatever—“

Hanamaki smirks and leans over to say, “You mean _who_ —“

“ _Whatever_ I want, and I’m not going to let this engagement hold me back from that,” he finishes with a proud nod. Whatever Hanamaki assumes he might do is entirely wrong because despite how much his best friend loves to think he knows Tooru, there’s no capacity to understanding all the hell Tooru can raise. 

“In short, you’re going to fuck around and make a ruckus.”

A sly smile slides across Tooru’s lips, and he lifts his chin up slightly, the aura of a god drowning in gold around him from the simple movement. 

“You know me so well, Makki,” he says.

“It’s my job to, asshole,” Hanamaki grumbles, running his palms over his face, dragging them down slowly as if to erase Tooru’s existence from his skin. 

— 

Tooru gets pulled out of his slumber by the waves of conversation roaring outside his bedroom door. Servants’ heels clicking against the stone floor, voices climbing up and down the walls like infested vines. It’s too early for all this commotion. He runs a slow hand down the stretch of his face and mumbles under his breath. The floor is cold against the flat of Tooru’s feet until he finds the plush slippers under his vanity and kicks them on. It’s probably improper for him to step outside of his room in the pale, mint silk pajama set he wears every night, but Tooru can’t find it in him to care. He’s been woken up too early, and the servants can face a little embarrassment from seeing him, as what the rest of the kingdom would consider, undressed.

The second he pulls back the door and takes a step out, Tooru runs into a barrier in the shape of a six-foot-tall asshole. He stumbles back slightly, clutching to the handle of his bedroom door to keep from falling.

“What is going _on_?”

“Knew you would try to be nosy,” Hanamaki says, putting a hand on Tooru’s chest and shoving him into his room. “And it’s rude to make the servants flustered just _because_ you’re nosy.”

Tooru fakes a hurt gasp. “I was doing no such thing.”

Hanamaki rolls his eyes and closes the door behind them. Tooru doesn’t miss the sound of the lock clicking into place.

“That’s exactly what you planned on doing. I’m glad I made it up here in time to keep you from leaving the poor girls red-faced and breathless.”

“So, it’s true then? They _do_ find me attractive,” Tooru says, crossing the room and sitting at his vanity. His hair’s an absolute mess, similar to that of a bird’s nest. Perhaps it’s better that Hanamaki prevented him from leaving his bedroom. Letting anyone see him in such a state would have been a national travesty.

“For the blessed stars above, shut up,” Hanamaki says. “Nobody wants to see you in your bedclothes, that’s all.”

Tooru hums, eyes focused on his reflection in the glass. He fumbles in a drawer on the right side of the vanity for a brush and lifts it out with a quiet and satisfied sigh before bringing it to his head and cleaning up the mess of his hair.

“So,” he says, “what’s the business?”

“Apparently, the King has called for a party.”

Tooru freezes and catches Hanamaki’s gaze through the mirror. “A party?”

“A full-on extravaganza. The entire ballroom is being swept and set up as we speak. Spare rooms are being cleared out and prepared for guests from all over.”

 _Why would there even need to be a ball right now_ , Tooru questions. His wedding is two years off, and the official engagement hasn’t been planned. Nobody knows about the proposal, Tooru’s father had barely bothered with the details when informing him. All he knows is that he’s finally betrothed after five years of meeting random royals and not finding interest in any of them. Tooru shoves the frustrations of this impending marriage away and shifts his focus back to the ball.

“When is it?”

Hanamaki crosses one ankle over the other and stretches back against Tooru’s bed, his palms flat against the mattress.

“In two days.”

Tooru nearly chokes on his spit. He spins around to face Hanamaki, his eyes stretched with a cold glaze of irritation, mouth hung open.

“Please tell me this is all some funny joke. Hanamaki, I’m begging you, please tell me this is some little tug on my leg to get back at me for some monstrous thing I did last week. _Please_.”

Hanamaki gives him a look that says more than Tooru needs to hear. He falls over the chair’s arm, hanging backward with this hair brushing against the floor, his hands dangling dramatically.

“Sit up before all the blood rushes to your brain and you die,” Hanamaki says, flat and uncaring.

“I’d rather die here than go to a ball without new clothes.”

“You’re being a baby.”

“I’m being _realistic_. It’s embarrassing.”

“What’s embarrassing is you lying over your chair like a toddler who’s been denied a toy. Sit up, Oikawa.”

There’s a slight harsh curve to Hanamaki’s tone, it latches onto Tooru’s skin and tugs him up, facing his vanity once more. None of this is a joke, then. A ball is set in two days, and he has little to no time to prepare. He quirks a brow at himself in the mirror, mind rolling through all the possible explanations. His father has to be planning something in secret.

“Don’t burst your brain thinking that hard,” Hanamaki says.

“Shut up. I’m trying to figure out why this is happening.”

“Does it matter? Even if you come up with some supposed reason, it won’t make your father call off the ball. You’ll have to suck it up like everyone else.”

Tooru knows that. He’ll have to suck it up no matter what happens because he’s the prince, and he’s meant to be perfect, carved out by the stars and clouds to stand as the face of the entire Oikawa Crown. Even if he gets to the bottom of his father’s scheming, which he’s more than positive is going on, his father never acts without methodical planning. Tooru will always have to play his role in the castle. 

There’ll never be any escaping that.

Even this marriage, so far off in the distance but somehow edging on the thin horizon line, is a piece the king uses on his chessboard of life. Tooru’s only another rook, another piece to be toppled over and disregarded once out of the picture.

He stares at his reflection—the delicate line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the knit of his brows, the purse of his lips. If this face is meant to bring prosperity to the nation, if this face is what his father plans to use to construct his own reign, then Tooru will do everything in his power to make it crash down in an onslaught of fire. 

He’ll tear down this castle brick by brick, claw the crown off of his father’s head and take it for himself, he’ll clutch the throne with his own hands, he’ll—

“There’s murder on your face, Oikawa, and we don’t have time for murder.”

Tooru blinks and turns halfway to look at Hanamaki.

“Who said anything about death? Don’t ruin the mood of excitement with talk of such things.”

Hanamaki snorts and pushes up off Tooru’s bed, crosses the small stretch of floor between them, and puts a hand on his shoulder. His touch is warm, and it should be reassuring. It should be a gust of solidarity that cements Tooru, but it does the complete opposite. The weight of Hanamaki's hand shakes him to the core, the omnipotent curve of his fingers along Tooru’s shoulder is a terrifying burden. For a moment, Tooru feels as though his chest is locked up, a cage of thick steel incapable of being broken.

He can’t breathe.

“I know you’re angry,” Hanamaki says. “And I know you’ll deny it, but it’s there. You need to let it go, at least for now. Making a mess of the castle won’t do anything but piss off your father, and you know what happened last time you—”

Tooru jerks away from his touch. The chair scrapes against the floor, an eerie creak resonating throughout the room. He shoots up from the chair, fists curled at his sides. They itch to hit something—the wall, the mirror, Hanamaki, himself.

Nothing can justify Hanamaki’s reason for bringing up the last time Tooru had been caught a disheveled disappointment. His hair had been sticking up all over the place, with blood trickling from his nose, from the cuts on his cheekbone, along the hills of his knuckles. His father put him through hell, something a prisoner would go through, and Tooru still can’t forget the chill of the dungeons, the burden of chains on his wrists and ankles.

“Don’t,” he says, tight and contained in the back of his throat.

Hanamaki raises two hands, a plea of guilt. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I said _don’t_. You knew exactly what you were doing by bringing that up, Takahiro,” Tooru snaps. His hands are still itching. The balls of his feet tingle with the desire to run, to jump out the window, to crunch somebody’s nose. “I don’t want to hear about it again. That’s an order.”

“Of course,” Hanamaki says, dropping his head. “Your Highness.”

It’s moments like this that give Tooru the air of a king rather than a prince. He rarely talks to the castle staff, let alone his friend, in such a manner, but there are times where his raging royalty cannot be controlled, cannot be held behind his ribcage.

Oikawa Tooru is not angry by nature but rather by practice. This has proved true on more than one occasion. For instance, after each scrap with lesser royals from other nations or pathetic fights after Tooru knowingly helped someone commit adultery. After each consequence rained down on him, the hand of his father, the click of chains and the dark of the dungeon—he’s learned what it means to be a person who shelters demons in his chest. Usually, it’s outsiders who face the backlash of these fiery things, but no one is safe from pushing Tooru over the edge and into that pit of red and blood and graveyard dirt.

A knock comes from the far side of the room, and Tooru shoots his head over to the door.

“What?” he yells.

Seconds later, a younger servant clambers into his bedroom, eyes downcast and their posture curved, as though hiding in on themselves. 

“The King wishes to see you in his study, Your Highness,” they say.

Tooru sighs and squeezes his eyes shut, forcing the throbbing irritation out of his skull. He can feel Hanamaki’s eyes on him. He can feel the servant across the room shivering like they’ll be punished for sharing a message. He can feel all the red in his bones and the rot of the marrow within them. A deep breath, then Tooru opens his eyes and nods.

“Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I’m dressed, please,” he says, voice back to the sweet stream it typically is.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The servant leaves with a mouse-like silence, and Tooru moves to the wardrobe that sits to the right of his vanity. He flings the doors open and scans over his clothes before pulling out a pair of dark pants and a white shirt with an open neck that cuts like a V and slightly exposes his collarbones. It’s not the nicest thing he owns, and his father will surely have something to say about him dressing to the likes of a stable boy, but Tooru doesn’t quite care what the king thinks about his attire.

“Would you like me to go with you?” Hanamaki asks once Tooru’s pulled the shirt over his head.

“I don’t care,” is his answer. He knows that Hanamaki will follow along behind him regardless of whether or not he requests his presence. 

Tooru tucks the shirt into his pants, letting it puff out slightly over his waist, and tugs on the closest pair of shoes; dark leather ones that come up to his ankles and have a slight heel. Not that he needs the height, but rather because he enjoys the sound of his heels clacking against the floor.

One last inhale and exhale to calm his nerves, then Tooru is parading out of his room and into the stretching hallway. The windows on either side of him are arched and stained with intricate designs, swirls and moons and suns and sprinkles of stars. Pale layers of purple, blue, and orange slant through the windows and reflect onto the floor. Tooru’s shadow cuts through them like a knife as he sweeps through the halls.

The King’s study is up two flights of stairs, and Tooru would usually whine the entire way up, but his mouth is sewn shut as he climbs the stairs. Hanamaki’s heavy steps echo behind him. When he steps off on the third floor, Tooru’s heels get muffled by the minty turquoise carpet that lines the path to his father’s study. After weaving through the maze-like corridors, he pauses in front of the door. It looms over him like a monster with teeth bared. Tooru’s breath hitches in his throat, but then Hanamaki puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

“It won’t be that bad,” he reassures.

 _No_ , _it’ll be worse than I expect, and I’ll have to stand subordinate and quiet while he forces me to do something,_ Tooru thinks. No conversation with his father ever goes smoothly, those rivers are always full of jagged rocks, and one of these days, Tooru is going to slip into the river and find those uneven points poking through his chest.

“Stay here,” he says, hoping his voice isn’t as cracked as it sounds in his head. “I won’t be that long.”

He puts a hand on the gold handle, turns it cautiously, and pushes the door open.

  
  


“The guests for the engagement ball will be here in the morning. We’ll dine with them at midday, and then you will show the youth around the castle,” his father says, his eyes boring into Tooru’s with an austere grimness. Tooru fights the shiver that threatens to slide down his spine. He’s barely been in the room for a minute.

“I expect you to be on your best behavior, Tooru,” he continues. “You’re already well acquainted with some of the guests, but there are a few new arrivals who expect a strong Crown. It’s your job to reinforce that perception.”

If a strong Crown can be considered a failed relationship between a king and his heir, these newcomers have nothing to fear when it comes to the power the Oikawas hold.

“Of course, Father. Why wouldn’t I be on my best behavior?”

The King raises a brow, noting the slight defiance to Tooru's voice, the subtle movement on his face is a question. It's a temptation that Tooru wants to sink into. It calls for him to test his father’s mood, remind him that his son is equivalent to a demon, and force him to regret marrying his eldest daughter so early. 

Tooru’s sister, before her marriage, was the sunlight of the castle. She held everything together so easily, even with the troubled relationship between the King and Prince. Now that she’s gone, there’s only a ghost of her memories for the King to cling to. 

He knows that his Father wishes Mai was still around, but now his sister is far away, ruling in a nation that their Crown does trade with. She’ll never come home, no matter how much the King yearns for it. He’ll have to deal with his unruly son until the marriage he’s arranged for Tooru comes to fruition. 

“I mean it—none of your trickeries and jokes. One of the new Crowns, the Iwaizumis, is a fairly young nation, and we would do well with them under our wing. I expect you to be particularly welcoming to their son.”

There’s a quiet twinge in his father’s voice that leaves Tooru thinking that there’s a veiled meaning to his words, something peculiar about this new Iwaizumi Crown. He pushes the interest away and forces himself to nod.

“I’ll make sure he’s well attended to, Father,” Tooru says.

“Good. That’s all.”

Tooru bows slightly, only giving his father half of the appreciation he supposedly deserves as King, and turns on his heel. The study door slams shut behind him, and oxygen fills his lungs.

“Well?” Hanamaki asks, trailing after Tooru as he paces down the halls and to the staircases.

“I’m fucked.”

“How so?”

Truthfully, he doesn’t know. It’s not terrible to show people around the castle, to play the pretty-boy prince everyone expects him to be. Tooru knows of the rumors that sweep through the nations about him, how he’s a scandalized royal who does more work in his bed than for his kingdom; how it’s a dangerous thing to be caught in the same room as him lest one wants to be caught under his captivating, amber gaze.

“I just am, Hanamaki,” he says. “I just am.”

Nothing else is said as they hurry back to his bedroom. Tooru knows that there are things to do around the castle. He could help the servants prepare for the ball, which he’s done hundreds of times before. He could sneak down to the kitchens, assist the cooks, or rearrange guest rooms, but he can’t stomach the idea of doing such a thing right now. All he wants to do is run back to his bed and fight the urge to burn the castle down, his father locked up inside of it. 

If Tooru had his way, he’d go out into the fields with Hanamaki and pull out the sword he keeps stashed beneath his bed, but he knows someone will catch sight of them and slip it to his father. After the last show with swords, an occurrence Tooru refuses to speak of, he’d been banned from ever holding a blade again.

“Did he say anything specific about the Crowns coming for the ball?” Hanamaki asks once they’re in the safety of Tooru’s bedroom, the door locked behind them.

Tooru falls back onto his bed and grunts, a half-handed _yes_. Hanamaki sits to his left and peers down at him with curiosity burning in his cheeks.

“Who?”

“Some new Crown. The Iwaizumis. I’ve never heard of them before.”

Hanamaki hums. “I’ve only heard about the prince. He’s around our age, I believe. Apparently, he’s quite adept with a bow. Maybe we can convince him to make your father’s forehead a bullseye.”

“You always have the strangest information,” Tooru says, a tiny smile cracking out on his lips.

“The streets are quite loud if you actually to listen to them.”

He hums in agreement. “Well, I hope this Iwaizumi prince isn’t boring. Stars know I could use some entertainment around here, especially if I have to put up with an entire night of dancing.”

“You’ll meet him tomorrow, won’t you?”

Tooru nods. 

“Sadly.”

Yesterday Tooru thought he had two years of peace. Two years of gallivanting around the kingdom doing whatever and whomever the hell he wanted, causing a mess that’d reap scandal through the nation and possibly ruin the arrangement. He could do something horrible enough to have the opposite party pull back from the marriage proposal, but now everything's changed.

Now, he only has two days to pull himself together and put on a pleasant front for guests, to ignore the slowly rising anger and urges to cause a scene that’d bring dishonor on the entire Oikawa Crown. 


End file.
